Guy Fawkes Day: Gunpowder, Cultural Violence and Dying?

Having recently moved to Manchester, UK, about six weeks ago, I come face-to-face with the first historical event yesterday: the bonfire.

5th November is the day when England throw up fireworks as a spectacular display of colours in the sky. I was told that there would be a bonfire as well. But I didn't quite know what the significance of the event was, even though I could vaguely remember the masked man (starring Hugo Weaving) in the movie, V for Vendetta, blowing up the Parliament.

In 1605, Guy Fawkes had wanted to blow up the Parliament, but his Gunpowder Plot failed. Naturally, King James I and the rest of the city survived the impending tragedy. To celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, the English now commemorate this day with fireworks and a bonfire.

According to a friend who grew up in Manchester, people used to make effigies of Guy Fawkes and go around asking for donations, "Penny for the Guy?" They would then burn the effigy in the bonfire. But this ritual seems to have trickled off, with Halloween celebrations (1 week earlier) becoming more prevalent.

Some questions I am baffled by:


1. As a theatre practitioner inclined to observe rituals and performances in non-traditional settings, I would have liked to witness the burning of the effigy (Well, I saw the bonfire from a distance). If we are commemorating this day because the English had survived a tragedy, would this annual event then become a modern-day crucifixion? How different would this be to re-creating the hanging of Jesus on the cross, or the burning of witches in Salem and other European cities? This is a symbolic act of torture, not sacrifice. If we delight in the burning of the effigy, what does this tell us about the collective psyche of our humankind? What values are we imparting to our children when they ask, "Why are we burning this man?" "Oh, he's a bad person. Bad people ought to die." By implicature, are we then saying that the death penalty is a legitimate form of punishment because the criminals (all criminals?) are bad?

2. Commemorating an event (usually a human tragedy) usually takes on a solemn and somber mood. But no, this Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated with pomp and circumstance. The fireworks display had gatherings of people in large open spaces all across England. At the Platt Fields Park where I was, there was a funfair bustling with children and adults.

If the English had turned this into a celebration (technically they are, since they had survived the 1605 tragedy), then what they are doing is really immortalising Guy Fawkes. Never mind that he was considered a terrorist of his time, but his revolutionary ideals remained - for lack of a better word - revolutionary. He has become a martyr of our time. If, in theory, he was a "bad guy", then why are we immortalising him to such a status? If he was a good guy with revolutionary values, doesn't this offer us yet another insight into the social constructivist nature of "morality" and "ethics"? What is good in one context may be (mis)construed as evil in another.

3. Yet the irony of it all is that the English are throwing up fireworks into the sky. Isn't it an act of completion, visibly at least for Fawkes' sympathisers? They are symbolically finishing what Guy couldn't finish - and so the act is done.

Staring up at the pitch black sky last night with hundreds of others gathered at Platt Fields Park, I was occasionally charmed by the display of fireworks. But what hit me hardest, emotionally, was not the sense of awe (The children were "oooh-ing and aaaaah-ing" at every blast), but a grounded sense of reality. For the first time in my life, I hear the fiery explosions reverberating directly over my head in such proximity. The sounds were loud enough to give me shudders. The spray of the fireworks was wide enough to envelope and engulf me. The scene was neither commemorative nor celebratory. I felt suddenly transported to my intended site of my doctoral research - Afghanistan.

There, bombs go off (at least that's what the media say). And so, it would probably sound and feel like that in my skin every day if I were there.

This feeling of unease brought me back to the bomb blast experience I had when I was in Varanasi, India, one year ago. It was probably 150 metres away from my hotel when the bomb went off. I remember a sense of panic, and fear of the unknown for that moment. But I soon realised that it's usually the people around me - and the onslaught of police sirens minutes later - who add to the "drama" and commotion, thus adding to my accumulating sense of danger and fear of death. I didn't fear "death" at the outset but I was made to be afraid of death when my senses finally processed the vibrations, sounds, and smells.

I wonder, again, of the term "heroic research" that has come up in some discussions. No, I have no wish of dying or putting myself in danger while researching in a site of conflict. I don't need to be a hero, and neither would I want to be one. But I wonder, who would stand amongst the injured and the wounded to tell their stories? Who could, and would, take the risk to be amongst the traumatised and by so doing, aim for some form of healing and closure?

Really, I don't want to be a martyr. But I do not want to look into the eyes of a war victim and pretend that it's going to be OK. Nor look into the eyes of anyone else living in apparent safety and pretend that it's OK. Either way, it's not OK. Guy Fawkes, for me, represents these irreconciliable tensions.